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the one who had given him the shirt. “Damn housekeeper,” she muttered, narrowing her eyes as she focused on the window. “Go to bed already!”
    He was barely aware of the housekeeper. Didn’t give a shite. All he cared about was her. This lush woman atop him. It had been so long since he’d touched anyone without fighting. Smelled the sweet scent of a woman. Known only a soft, gentle touch. If he pressed his mouth to hers, would she slap him, or welcome his kiss?
    Devon didn’t dare move for fear the dream would end. He lay there, merely lay there soaking in her essence. She shifted again, her thighs brushing his, her breath quick and warm across the side of his face, just as it would be if they made love.
    He closed his eyes. He would sell his soul at the moment, for a kind touch. His thoughts went unwillingly to Ashley, yet even as he thought of the woman, Cristian came to mind. Cristian, a man who had been his best friend and mortal enemy. A memory of Ashley and Cristian embracing flared to life.
    She’d chosen him, whispered through his mind. Ashley had fallen for Cristian.
    Damn it all, why couldn’t he remember more?
    But this woman wasn’t Ashley. Ashley was lean and dark; a mystery most of the time. This woman was lush, her face showing her every emotion. And she smelled different. She smelled like… like lilacs in summer. Like hope. Damn it all, he’d wanted her from the moment they’d met.
    “She’s gone.” She turned her head and must have only just realized the impropriety of their situation. Even though it was dark, he swore he could see her blush. “Sorry, but you can’t go in there.”
    Annoyed, Devon flipped her over, covering her body with his. Her eyes grew wide with shock, her delicate hands pressed to his chest, as if to ward him off. She might have powers, but she didn’t seem to be a trained fighter at the moment. “No one tells me I can’t go into my own home.”
    She pounded her fists against his shoulders. “It’s not your home.”
    The words sank into his gut, tore at his insides. She was right.
    Slowly, he turned his head, searching the building that loomed beside them. It looked the same. Perhaps the gardens were different, the trees larger, the flower beds changed. But he knew it wasn’t his home. He could see the telephone lines, hear the rumble of cars in the distance. Those same noises he’d heard at that pub with Ashley. How they had annoyed him. But when? How long ago had he been at that pub?
    And they bothered him now—the noises— here, in this place he used to live where there was no longer any true silence. He might have stayed the same, but his family and even his ancestral home, had changed.
    Devon rolled off her, sitting in the grass and staring up at the place where he’d been born. Where he’d played as a child. Where he’d lost his parents… his wife. “Who owns the home?” Blast it, if his voice didn’t catch.
    “Lord Templeton. He bought the place about ten years ago. To help pay bills, he does garden tours during the day and ghost tours at night.”
    Devon stiffened and jerked his gaze toward her. Was she jesting? “Ghost tours?”
    She shifted, looking uncomfortable. She’d seen that ghost in her cottage, he knew for a fact. Would she try to deny it now? “You point out ghosts to humans looking for a thrill?”
    She tucked her feet underneath her and stood. “No. We tell them… about… supposed hauntings.” She glanced back at her cottage, nestled there near the woods. That cottage that hadn’t been there when he’d lived in the manor.
    She shrugged, but still looked uneasy. “Lord Templeton doesn’t exactly care for the tours, but since he makes so much money off of them…”
    Devon looked toward the manor. He knew no Lord Templeton.
    They had sold his ancestral home. Sold it to a stranger. He felt sick. He’d rather be in hell then facing this. It shouldn’t have mattered, this material object, but for some reason it did. It